The Guy Liddell Diaries, Volume 1, 1939-1942 (review)

This is one of the most important documents yet published concerning intelligence and counterintelligence in the Second World War.

Guy Liddell (rhymes with "riddle"), a relative of Alice Liddell, the original "Alice in Wonderland," was deputy chief and then chief of B Division of the Security Service, usually known as MI5, throughout the war. As such he was in charge of counterespionage in the United Kingdom and the overseas empire except for India; including, among many other things, the legendary "double-cross" system of playing captured agents back to the Germans.

A skilled cellist, married to the Honorable Calypso Baring of the great banking family (who deserted him abruptly; it has been suggested that she inspired in part the character of Lady Ann Smiley in the John Le Carré novels), Liddell moved easily in high social circles and was a cultivated and literate man. Towards the end of August 1939, with war clearly imminent, he began keeping a diary of his activities with B Division. From then until the end of the conflict in 1945, at the end of nearly every day he would dictate a summary of notable developments to his secretary, Margo Huggins (who, incidentally, is still alive). The twelve volumes of this priceless record, codenamed Wallflower, were for many years kept in the personal safe of the Director-General of MI5 and allowed to be read only by selected personnel as a training aid. Recently placed in the open files at the Public Record Office as part of the sweeping program of declassification initiated by MI5 under Stephen Lander, Liddell's diary is now being published in two volumes edited by "Nigel West" (Rupert Allason), the outstanding authority on the British secret services. This first volume covers the period to the end of 1942.

Some matters touched on in this volume are familiar to students of the period, though often the diaries shed new light on them; others will be quite new; many sound familiar in the context of recent concerns over American intelligence and counterintelligence. There are the laments of the professional over the stumblings of policymakers and politicians—"amateur detectives in high places"—with their desire to make a show of hanging spies rather than using them to penetrate enemy intelligence, and their near-panic about supposed Fifth Columnists in the months after Dunkirk. There are the problems of establishing security in a democracy that observes due process—though to his credit, Liddell fiercely opposed the manhandling of suspects. There is fretting over the mentality of some other agencies engaged in counterintelligence; "essentially a police force using police methods," said Liddell of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in terms equally applicable to the FBI, "hoping their existing network will throw up any spies who happen to be around." Such concerns have a familiar ring to them in 2005.

Familiar matters on which the diaries shed new light include the constant friction between B Division and Section V of MI6 under Felix Cowgill ("I am quite sure that we shall never get this right until we take over Section V," opined Liddell in terms reminiscent of concerns over "stovepiping" of American intelligence in recent years); the role of Karl Haushofer in Rudolf Hess's flight to Scotland in 1941; doubts over the effectiveness of William Stephenson's British Security Coordination operation in New York; dissatisfaction with the FBI's performance in running the great double agent known as Tricycle; and the extent to which the Spanish legation in London was a hotbed of German intelligence activity in the early period of the war. Essentially new matters range from major topics (MI5's systematic searching of the supposedly inviolable diplomatic bags of foreign legations and tapping of their telephones; the extensive wartime cooperation between MI5 and the counterintelligence agencies of the government of Eire; grave problems with the staff of General De Gaulle...